New Paintings by Deborah Petoskey at Caprice Bistro

Local artist Deborah Petoskey will hang her work at Caprice Bistro for a couple of months, starting the first Thursday of August. While she works in many disciplines, this show will focus on her paintings.

According to her website http://artbypetoskey.weebly.com, she creates art because, “Like breathing in and out, the creative soul finds itself in need of something more.” She appears to be a roaming spirit that wants to explore and expand things. She wants to be intrigued and to intrigue, and thus her art.

Petoskey savors spontaneous moments of paint and enjoys the details of a work. She sees the compositional pulleys move with visual weight, and she balances blocked planes of near-monochrome against charged paint-quilt areas. She gets involved in the nuanced spaces, operating in the smaller frames that converge towards the larger ones. Her process works through and against a sequence of material/idea application, interspersing language with urban & architectural references. Layers of masking offset a build-up of surface, a Benton-like push/pull effect, and she frequently achieves moments of good paint-handling. There is a joy in effect presented here, if somewhat raw. Unity wrestles dissolution as bold linework maps the stages of the canvas. Early Pollock comes to mind, maybe a note of Klee or Mondrian's experimental drawings.

Petoskey's compositions are abstract, whether one focuses on a section or steps back from the painting, and they satisfy in their nonobjective state. The paintings feel natural in their flux. The variety in scale and palette, even style, will allow for several visits throughout the duration of the show. Give them one chance and you'll give them several.

Caprice Bistro will host the exhibit of paintings in the Upstairs Sofa Lounge. The opening will be Thursday August 4^th From 7pm until 9pm.